Top EU Court Rules Against Meta, Limits Use of Personal Data for Targeted Ads

In a landmark decision, the top court in the European Union (EU) has ruled that Facebook parent company Meta cannot use personal data gathered from its own platforms or from external sources for targeted advertising without adhering to strict limits and restrictions under the bloc’s privacy laws. The ruling, hailed as a victory by privacy advocates, was issued on Oct. 4 by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in response to a lawsuit brought by Austrian activist Max Schrems, who has long campaigned for stricter enforcement of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Schrems accused Facebook of processing his sensitive personal data to serve him with targeted ads in violation of the GDPR, specifically the data minimization rule, which requires companies to limit the amount of personal data collected and stored to what is strictly necessary....